Monday, May 11, 2015

Flower Power: Córdoba's Patio Festival

Spring sucks in Jaén for people with allergies. They walk around with white painter's masks, to avoid breathing in pollen. We are surrounded by the olive trees of the countryside, and I feel bad for them. They definitely wouldn't be able to partake in a cool event in Córdoba at this time of year: the Feria de los patios.

Bad for the allergic...

...but fun for me.

Things I learned: Córdoba is best accessed via bus, although it's a 2 hour ride. Since I went on a Sunday morning, there were no Blablacars and the only train to arrive on time for the feria left Jaén at 6:40 a.m. It's very easy to walk the 20 minutes from the bus station to the sites. They're all relatively close to one another. Córdoba's old city centre is not very big. It was HOT though, so I was glad I was wearing a summer dress and good walking shoes.Córdoba is filled with people who can speak English, at least at bare minimum. Better than in Jaén. Good news for tourists, bad news for someone like me who wants to be forced to struggle along in Spanish. I was flattered to hear from the tourism agent that my Spanish was very good!My impression of the feria was that it was cool to see the patios.... the first ten, anyway. By the time we hit number eleven, I felt like I'd seen enough, although I kept going because my friend was excited to see such artistry playing with nature. It was definitely something culturally exciting that I'd never experienced before.